Adolin

Hey your Adolin is gold! Love it =) I second that every artist can have their own interpretation, that makes fan art worth admiring =)

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Thanks!  Every reader and every artist forms their own impression and voice for a character...well, as long as the author knows what they're doing. 

 

That is why representative cover art with character faces like a movie poster turn me off.  Your first impression is coloured by it immediately since cover art is accepted as semi-canon, even if the author had no input. 

I like the hair, they are about how I always pictured them. I pictured them as looking stylish whenever he combs them, but once his "hair product" wears out or if he doesn't bother, they just fall in a messy unruly mop over his forehead. Exactly the kind you just want to mess even more by robbing your hands into it.

 

Some artists draw them curly, but curly doesn't work for me. 

 

The eyes are pretty good, though did you draw them brown or is it my computer screen who isn't rendering the colors right? Adolin has blue eyes.

 

I agree Adolin's hair, from a distance look golden, the black only being seen from up-close or this is how I picture him.

 

I really love you explaining how you interpreted the character description. I once read how Brandon took care not to overly describe his characters in order to enable his readers to have their own personalize imagery.

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If you rubbed Adolin's head, his hair would still look the same after as it did before.  That is how I imagined it would be like when I drew it.  Not curly hair, but thick and gets fluffy looking 3 hours after a trim from the barber. 

 

 

I drew the eye as a grey-ish blue, or how blue eyes look on Earth.  I don't know if blue eyes on Roshar mean bright blue like gemstones, of it's just Radiants who have them.  But Alethi are humans so I went with the more natural human look.  But of course you can't really tell in low resolution.  The original file when I was working on it was around 4000px wide.

 

I like to explain why I drew certain features because I like seeing explanations from other people.  Drawing a character in a stylised way means you condense your perceptions into an image, and summarise hundreds lines of text to convey one or two main traits.  It's part of my process, and lets other people see what I see in a character and what parts of them struck me as significant and character defining.

 

For example, some people would see "mop of hair" in Adolin's description and draw it all the way down to his forehead and covering his eyebrows, Bieber-style.  To me, that would be too young since I would consider Adolin a man and not a boy.  Some other people would have it shorter, 2cm below the hairline.  But to me, that kind of Roman soldier haircut wouldn't fit Adolin because he never wanted to be a soldier, and he rebels against Dalinar's uniform regulations without actually breaking the rules...

 

Yeah I think about these things when trying to draw a character design.  Small things having meaning to me.

I don't draw (I am terrible with a pen), but I do think about a great many little things when I try to mentally picture the characters. I try to be as accurate as possible, but I tend to lock onto certain physical descriptive more than others. In the case of Adolin, the items which draw my attention the most were his messy mopish golden hair, the fact he isn't as physically imposing as Dalinar (whom I imagine as full grown bull, so Adolin isn't a wealking, but he isn't a bull: more athletic, quick and fit than his father) and how most characters describe him as looking youthful.

 

I agree about thick and fluffy hair. I too do not imagine Adolin's hair Biebier style (not convenient to have hair over your eyes for a duelist), more like an in-between. He isn't a boy, but at the same time you would never see many older men (Dalinar, Amaram, Sadeas, Sebrarial, Teleb, etc) harboring the same hair cut. 

 

Military hair cut is a no for me as it doesn't befit the "messy mop of hair" Dalinar comments on so often in book. If his hair were this short, they wouldn't look messy nor would Shallan want to rub her hands into them, imho.

 

I really like your take on how Adolin wears his hair "outside military regulation" to rebel from his father's regulations: every little leeway he can get away with it (shinning buttons, upscale boots), he takes it.

 

As for the eyes, I personally pictured them as light blue, like a clear sky. I comparison, I picture Dalinar's eyes as darker blue and Kaladin's Radiant eyes as vivid blue, nearly glowing.

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It is rare (to me at least) to find people who are not artists come up with detailed mental pictures when they read.   Even I don't have one for the first or second read through, or first time I try sketching from memory. 

 

To me, Dalinar is tall (184/185cm; I'm guessing 177cm or so is average Alethi male which is pretty big for a pre-industrial society, since in 170cm was considered average in 1920 in my country) and very fit for his age, but in the warcamps there are many young men who are taller and more muscular.  Dalinar gets by on his strength of personality.  He may not be that much taller than most people, but when they speak to him, they leave with the impression that he's a lot bigger than he is because of his presence and aura of authority.

 

Here's a concept sketch I drew a while ago while trying to gather my impressions.  He's not that much taller than Navani but he has a serious face and serious manner that would intimidate anyone when he wears Shardplate.  If I Elhokar getting a can of whupchull opened on me, I'd probably dirty my Plate.

 

I experimented with a number of hairstyles see what would fit Adolin the best.  The first hand-drawn sketches I drew, in retrospect, resembled Fred from Scooby Doo (now that I think about it, Fred and Daphne could easily be recoloured into Adolin and Shallan).  Rounded lines suggest softness and youth, and angular lines are better for conveying maturity.  It was a bit of trial and error to settle on a style that compromised on his personality of boyish playfulness and adult competence.

 

And one of the reasons why I kept re-working the picture was because there was always something that I wanted to change.  You mentioned Adolin with hair product and I remembered that I did draw a variant of it, but painted over it because I thought it was too "princeling" and not enough mop.

 

It looks silly, doesn't it?  I think it makes him edge into prettyboy level rather than just being handsome.

 

I think longer or "pretty" hair styles fit Renarin better.

When I like a story, I usually spend time trying to properly image the characters. I tend to visualize a lot when I read, so the more detailed the imagery, the better. Each time I stumble on a character of import, I try to picture him/her. 

 

Even the side characters, I visualize though I don't often bother to be overly accurate with them. 

 

The book makes the emphasis on Dalinar being very tall and physically imposing, so I do picture him as taller than 6ft. More like 1,90m than 1.85m. Adolin, I usually put at 1,85-1.88m and Kaladin at 1.95m.

 

In feet, it would be about 6.3ft for Dalinar, 6.1-6.2ft for Adolin and 6.4ft for Kaladin. Renarin would probably be at 6ft.

 

In terms of built, I do picture Dalinar as one of the largest, strongest man on the warcamps. He is only 50 years old which isn't that old: which a proper exercise routine, it is not unthinkable he would retain much of his previous shape, but with slower reflexes and less strength. Still, I do think Dalinar would give many younger men a run for their money, including his own son.

 

I read him as towering and not just by posture, by stature. Everyone is impress by Dalinar physical stance, but not so much by Adolin who gets dismiss by nearly everyone. I thus say the son isn't as tall (which is stated in book) or large as the father (which isn't explicitly stated, it is me reading between the lines for better or for worst), but he is much more agile, fit and quick.

 

Kaladin also is described as being practically a giant. He comments on Dalinar being very tall, though not as tall as he. 

 

So for me Dalinar is very tall, even among his people, he is a tall man. 

 

Even if their society is pre-industrial, they still have some level of technology, they benefit from strong health (almost not sickness, per Brandon) and developed medical care. Also, at 5.7ft Shallan isn't exactly small, much above the female average for my country (around 5.4ft). Where I live, 5.7ft is consider tall for a woman. So if Shallan claims to be small compared to the Alethi at 5.7ft, I take it their women are closer to 5.8-5.9ft with their men averaging about the 6ft. These are all, of course, pure speculations. I was somewhat puzzled Shallan thought herself small at 5.7ft......

 

I like the facial expression on your Dalinar: stern, cold and reliable. Much like Kaladin, I imagine Dalinar doesn't smile very often, though more readily than Kaladin. Dalinar smiles when he looks at this sons, fondly, when no one is staring at him, but for most people, he frowns and looks downright serious all the time.

 

Of course, he HAS to have the military hair cut, it goes without a saying.

 

I think the compromise you have reached between soft and hard lines is quite pleasant. It is about how I envision Adolin: playful, boyish, but capable of claiming authority on his own. The kind of face most women would swoon over, who would get dismiss because "too pretty or young looking to be serious" and yet able to command large armies while making 4 shardbearers tremble in front of him. An interesting mix.

 

I agree the second hair style you drew looks funny, not quite enough stylish, too... I don't know... perhaps it would befit Renarin better. I have a hard time imagining his hair style, something unkempt, but not messy or as fluffly as Adolin, more like an in-between between Dalinar's short style and Adolin's funky one.

 

Long hair for Renarin? I never really imagined him this way... I have always pictured more Alethi lighteyed as having short hair while the darkeyed tend to keep theirs longer, though this is not stated in book.

 

Here are a few ideas for Adolin's "stylish hair do":

 

 

Something like that, but a bit longer. The kind that stays put with hair products in, but drops quickly on his forehead without, like you draw them in the first picture.

 

Or something more like this:

 

 

It is amazing what you can stumble on while googling "fluffy blond men hair do"...

I don't have a defined image for a character unless I try to draw them.  I remember their described physical features like red hair or wobbly jowls but it never clicks together into a cohesive image until I draw it, and often I have to draw it multiple times until I have gotten closer to how I feel they should look.  It reminds me of how Shallan saw Pattern floating around in the corner of her eye but he wasn't real until she drew him.

 

Wow, in your interpretation, it sounds like the Shattered Plains is a bizarre alternate universe version of the Netherlands.  I actually went to my ereader copy of WoK and searched for "tall" and everyone seems above average, except for Gaz and Tien.

 

In the WoR scene where Shallan goes to the arena to sketch Shardplate, she tells Adolin she's 5'6" (168cm), a good height for a Veden woman, when he asks what she's up to. If we say that an average including peasants is 165cm, then multiply by the average height ratio of women to men which is 1.09, then the average Veden man would be 180cm. That was what I assumed was what most adult men Jah Keved and Alethkar were, so 190cm or above would be considered pretty unusual.  Even today, 190cm is not very common and mostly seen in people under age 30.  The Highprinces only started getting gemhearts for Soulcasting en masse 6 years ago, and most of the products stay in the Plains rather than being spread out to the rest of Alethkar.   That's why I estimated most nobles would be in the mid 180cms and Kaladin is unusually tall at 191-192cm.

 

Dalinar rarely smiles.  When he is pleased with something, his wrinkles rearrange themselves so his frown lines aren't so deep but his mouth barely moves.  He also gets happy eyes.

 

I don't know what the point of wearing a cape with Shardplate is, where does it even attach, and won't it trip you up and get covered in blood?  The guys who wear them in the 4-on-1 duel have breakaway capes, which means they just fall off...is it just coolness value?  Just like the paint that gets scraped off in every practice session or battle.

 

In my mind, when I draw Dalinar I think about Sam Vimes from Discworld mixed with Chief Powhatan from Pocahontas.  They both have a good combination of fatherly protectiveness and leadership.

 

 

What I don't understand is how Adolin is handsome, rich, skilled duellist, and a prince but somehow single in WoK.  Gold diggers are all around in a feudal society and it never made sense that no girl stuck around with him even if he looked at waitresses' bums and their sisters.  Given how shy he is about physical intimacy, it was all look and no touch and any girl (or her family) really interested in having her son inherit a princedom wouldn't make a big deal about it.  I get that no one likes Dalinar, but Dalinar won't live forever. 
There was that one thread on calculating Roshar years to Earth years and I think Adolin was worked out to be biologically 26 years old.  I kind of feel sorry for the guy now.

 

Oh man, that spiky hair makes me think about professional soccer players in 2005. 

 

It's not too far from the frosted spikes and boyband hair of last decade.  It's so cool that I had to add a motorcycle jacket to contain the frosty.  And not one of those old fashioned double rider leather jackets (Adolin could pull it off if he wanted to) but one of those really cool racing jackets for sportbikes.

 

You need a short cut back and sides to get gelled up hair to look like that.  I think Adolin's hair is too long for that.   And it makes him look a bit like a douchebag, which Kaladin would think is perfectly fitting. 

Pattern is the one spren I have the most trouble picturing... Wyndle as well, growing vines floating around? Sprens are strange, I somehow always think they would need to have facial features to talk.

 

Well, I'll admit my interpretation of the Shattered Plains is linked to many characters being described as tall and Shallan thinking herself small at 5.7ft (was it 5.6ft? I need to check in the book). In my country, the average for women is 5.4ft and for men it is 5.10ft. If I keep the same ratio for Veden, I get 6ft as the average male height. While 5.10ft is the average in my country, it isn't considered tall. Tall is only used for those who are above 6ft. 

 

In that optic, I have thus placed most characters well above 6ft. 1.90m is not so rare where I live, even in people above 30. There are several men at work whim are just towering. It is not the most common height, but it is seen rather often, which seemed to work with the clues I had to piece out the Alethi height. 

 

I guess it perhaps depends where we both live. I live in Canada: we aren't a tall country, but we aren't small either.

 

I love happy Dalinar: he looks so "not happy" to a casual observer.

 

I had wonder about the capes as well: why bother with a cape when going to war?

 

Love chief Powhatan.

 

As for why a handsome, rich and powerful heir to a desirable kingdom failed to secure himself a wife, I have theories. I do agree it is strange nobody saw fit to stick to him, despite his wandering eyes, if only for the promise of wealth and good name. I'd also point out Dalinar's name only started to lose credibility recently while Adolin's misfortune in courtship lasted many years. 

 

I even wrote an essay on an idea I had about it. The whole deal is too fishy not to hide anything, but sadly I think it very likely the author won't expand on it, worst I suspect Brandon himself does not even realize how implausible Adolin's courtships are unless he bothers to write more insight as to why he keeps on failing. Sadly, I don't think he will.

 

As for the age thing, well I am notorious for hating/ignoring it. The book describes, both physically and emotionally, a young men in his early twenties. Mid-twenties don't work for me for Adolin: it clashes with every single description we have. I thus tend to ignore it. Besides, it does not mean someone would have lived more years on Earth, his development is equivalent. Rosharian, in all appearances age at the same rhythm as their book age.

 

In any way, I do feel sorry for him: not one girl has been willing to stick with him. The only way I can see this happening is if he screwed up massively, repetitively and screwing up in such a spectacular manner has to have an explanation other than "he hasn't find the right one".

 

Haha love soccer player Adolin. I do picture his hair do as something boys band would wear nowadays or even back then... I mean, ever look at pictures from NKoTB? Surprisingly actual.... 

 

Agree his hair are probably longer, hence the second picture. Guy with longer hair combed in a douche way.

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Pattern is really weird to me, too.  He doesn't look like a small person like Syl and he has no mouth.   When Shallan carries him around, he causes slight shadowing and rippling on her dress but I draw him as a black outline because he would otherwise be invisible.  In my mind, he is the mix between a slug and one of those pinwheel toys for children, about the size of a CD and small enough to fit on a sheet of paper.  And he doesn't need a mouth to talk because I think the communication between Radiant and spren is perceived mentally: you think you're hearing a voice but it's all in your head.  That's why Bridge Four thinks Kaladin is weird when he talks to the air - Syl's and Pattern's voices aren't audible on the physical realm unless they want them to be, like when Syl talks to Sigzil and Pattern mimics voices for Shallan.  

In my country the average height for women and men is 165cm/178cm, with younger people and those of Anglo-european heritage being taller on average.   190+cm is not rare enough to be remarkable but it is uncommon, especially for people of Asian background whom I see a lot of on a daily basis.  There are some southeast Asian people I know who I think could very well pass for Alethi with their black hair and tan skintone.  I can admit that when I was figuring out how Alethi facial proportions worked, I drew on some Vietnamese Australians I know who have very expressive faces.  They are of average height and probably why my estimates for the Kholins' heights are a little lower than yours.   I also thought that since the plants on Roshar have to devote energy resources to protecting themselves from the highstorms, their crop yields would be lower because of it.  On Earth, a lot of food plants that originally had defence mechanisms in place such as thorny stems or bitter leaves or  tough skins had them bred out to produce heftier fruits.  And the gradual average height increase in western countries post WW1 has been because of better crop breeds and more efficient farming practises.   Unless Stormlight and parshman and chull labour makes up for it, the lack of horses and mechanisation in agriculture would leave Alethkar at a 1700's level of communal village farming, with Soulcasters only being used for food in cities of high population density, like Kholinar.  As a side note, Alethkar doesn't even have crossbows though they seem to have the capacity to produce them, just look at the Shardbearer's Grandbow.  If an engineer can design a crankable folding siege bridge, a crossbow isn't too far off.

Dalinar's regular facial expression veers between stern and grim most of the time.  It's similar to Kaladin, but Kal has an extra edge of bitterness that I try to channel.  People who don't know Dalinar would think that he never smiles, but people who know him well, like Adolin and Renarin, would be able to able to tell.  And when he is pleased and his eyes crinkle up, it's like he just said "I'm proud of you, son" even if he didn't say anything.  That means a lot because normally he just gives a solemn nod of acknowledgment when he is satisfied with things.

To me, Brandon's style of writing about relationships tends to be...idealised.  He played Adolin's pathetic love life for humour rather than making it feasibly realistic, so readers would suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy the sitcom level shenanigans.  But when you think about it, it's very very strange.  Even Lin Davar, Shallan's dad, who is a not particularly wealthy minor noble with a reputation for violent and crazy behaviour, somehow got remarried.  Adolin is nowhere near that level of crazy; at worst he's just apathetic.  He brags to Kaladin about girls going to the training arena to watch him spar and having to kick them out - but none of the girls he courts bothers to approach him; instead they wait for him to call and get mad when he doesn't.   I'm probably reading too much into something that is an obvious plot setup to introduce Shallan as main love interest.   But it still niggles at me a bit, because the worst things I can think of in a feudal society that would make you repulse girls so regularly, is being known as the guy who murdered his previous wife or the guy who sired and acknowledged an illegitimate son.  Adolin at the end of WoK had barely even kissed a girl.  

I take the biological age calculation with a grain of salt.  Rosharans obviously don't measure their own development by Earth standard and it would be silly if they did, since the Cosmere has no Earth and they all originate from Yolen anyway.  It would have put Jasnah in her 40's and Dalinar in his 60's.  Just feels weird to contemplate it.  I think the only people to put any shred of belief behind it are the ones who think that it's unrealistic for Kaladin to be a surgeon, spearman soldier, and squadleader by age 18.  

 

You should be careful when you talk about boybands and their hair and what they looked like in the way back.  Douchey is only the beginning.

 

 

I was reminded of the Dutch TV show "New Kids", about young working class men in a small town.  They all have interesting hair that would look very strange if it were black and blond. 

 

I tend to picture Pattern as large than a CD. I imagine him as a moving flow who distorts whatever he lies upon. He also has trouble hiding his voice, as illustrated in the scene, towards the end of WoR, where the scholar all heard him buzzing around.

 

I recall Brandon said sprens weren't all equal when it comes to hiding themselves: some like Syl are completely invincible while others like Pattern need to camouflage themselves over objects to remain undetected.

 

I am a French descendant and they aren't exactly known for their height... Asian are typically considered smaller, but while there is an Asian community over here, they aren't widespread. I thus never truly based myself on real Asians to picture Alethi. I tend to picture them as vaguely Caucasian with Asian-like eyes and an average darker skin than most typical white people, more like Natives than Japanese. This again is strongly influenced on my personal environment.

 

About heights and populace, I am not an expert, but I seem to recall reading how Native populations in America were taller, healthier and had longer life expectancy than Europeans of the same era. It was explained by less crowded cities, lesser infectious disease and more food being available despite the lack of modern techniques. Europeans grew up small due to their countries being over-populated towards the end of the Medieval period. I read the Black Death occurred most due to poor sanitary conditions coupled with years of starvation as the land failed to produce enough food to feed the population of the time. It is said it took several hundred of years before Europe's population raise back up to its former number, but by that time, farming techniques were able to withstand the numbers.

 

I thus do not think it implausible Alethi would have grown rather tall even if their farming techniques aren't up to par with modern day's food industry. It is quite probable their population is lesser combined to the fact Brandon explained disease was virtually non-existent on Roshar makes me easily believe Alethi can truly be taller than the European average.

 

They also do not farm the same grains and food as we do: it could be those plants are easily farmed with slow chulls...

 

Yeah, agree about Dalinar: nobody knows when he is smiling but his family and it means the world to them. He also isn't the kind of father to openly state his pride or his love. He isn't naturally demonstrative.

 

I agree Brandon likely played Adolin's missed courtships as a mean to bring comical relief into the story, but probably failed to create the require depth to make it plausible. It isn't an impossible task to turn into a good story, but I fear it won't happen. Brandon's plans for Adolin do not seem overly extensive: it thus seems probable he won't extrapolates on his issues, giving them the depth they need, bringing forth a side of Adolin which is hard to catch at first glance. 

 

Lin Davar is the one example which makes Adolin's incapacity at securing himself a wife implausible: if an impoverish known murderer manages to secure himself a second wife, how can a handsome, young and rich prince not manage to do the same after not one, not two, but six years of steady courtships? It is baffling and it requires an explanation as to why more tightly wrapped up than "he hasn't find the right one". It is impossible not one girl out of the infinity of dates he had pleased him enough to want to go further. I wrote an essay on my thoughts on the matter, if you want, I can PM it to you. It is my take on a plausible explanation for his misfortune, I think it is a nice one which would suit the character rather well, but it will never be canon. Sadly.

 

As for the girls, I'd like to point out girls call out on Adolin on a regular basis. In fact, we practically never see shy Adolin initiate the courting: it always comes from the girls and they nearly always are the ones who break it. He isn't in control of those: he conveys the impression of control due to his braggy nature, but he truly isn't. Girls toy with him as a cat would with a mouse: dating Adolin likely has become a game. Who hasn't date him? You can't truly be someone until you do. It is actually rather sad, nobody takes him for a person, just an object of amusement, a pretty boy it is fun to be seen hanging to, but burned out for any long term plans due to him having failed to secure him a wife at a decent age.

 

Adolin is horribly shy with intimacy: I wouldn't be surprise to find out Shallan actually is the first girl he kisses. He was far too enthralled in it for it to have been "common practice". He blushes. Who blushes for a kiss? Young teenagers. That Adolin does it as his age testify of a very inexperience young man hiding being a made-up false reputation, an object of amusement to the court, but what has he done to become this way? I had my theories.

 

I take it with a large grain of salt as I tend to completely disregard it. Most characters do not work out if you age them. As for Kaladin, the book states how unconventional it was for him to be named squadleader at such a young age. It isn't implausible as armies have steadily had their share of very young promising men being raised to leadership position before their years. It does/did happen, so Kaladin reaching the rank of squadleader, at 18, is not far-fetched, especially since squadleader isn't exactly a high ranked position, it basically is your level entry position above standard soldier. As for him being a spearman, he has had 4 years to learn his skills. I have read martial arts individuals state learning the spear is easy and four years is long enough for a decently skilled individual to become ridiculously good. It is thus, again, plausible. As for surgery, I'd say Kaladin isn't a surgeon. He has been trained for 5 years to care for mild to moderate injuries, but he likely is incapable of performing his father's more complicated surgeries. People put too much faith into Kaladin's skills: he hasn't perform any healing deed outside the ordinary. Yes, he can sow a wound and bandage it adequately and he has notions in sanitation, but these are basic skills teenage pool lifeguards are being taught. We aren't dealing with open heart surgery here.

 

So yes Kaladin is plausible, a very gifted individual certainly, but not implausibly so.

 

What comes around, goes around...

 

 

I prefer moppy haired Adolin... and no. No mullet. Adolin does NOT have a mullet. 

 

 

 

 

 

But maybe Renarin does.............

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Pattern can't hide his buzzing during storms.  The rest of the time he is quiet until he wants to be heard.  When Shallan was drawing the map of the plateaus in the chasm, Kaladin overheard her muttering about how how weirdly symmetrical they are, but he couldn't hear Pattern and thought she was just talking to herself.

If I were to portray Pattern realistically, he would look something like this: When he sits on Shallan's dress, he looks like interesting embroidery that spins very slowly in circular motions.  How obvious he is depends on the fabric texture and lighting, but I will draw him as a plain black outline for stylistic purposes.

 

Yeah, personal environments and experiences make up a lot of how individuals perceive the written word.  You associate Alethi with First Nations peoples, while for me, they seem more like Maori (New Zealand native) for their culture based on warfare.  Brandon was inspired by Utah landscapes when he designed the Shattered Plains, but when I read it, I thought it was more Australian-like, except less red.  We even have a similar version of laits - billabongs in low ground that hold water even when summer has dried out all the rivers.  

Perhaps Stormlight has something to do with how large and healthy Alethi appear to be.  Maybe it's silly of me to try to find parallels of Roshar to real life Earth, since their planet has Investiture and that's an important factor which is completely absent on Earth.  The Highstorms start from the Origin, east to west, hitting Alethkar first, and Alethi are probably the tallest nation on Roshar, since Vedens are mentioned to be around 2"/5cm shorter on average and Shinovar, farthest away from the storms and with so little Investiture that they don't even get sprens, is inhabited by people considered small and childlike to the rest of the continent.  Maybe their plants are more nutritious and calorie dense per gram than Earth crops - they do have Cultivation's shard and she is still alive, even if she prefers to ignore everything outside her wish granting cave.

I still can't decide if it's charming or annoying that Dalinar treats everyone like they're children.  He calls everyone "son", like Elhokar and Kaladin, he listens to people even though most of the time he will say his way is better.   Maybe part of his character development is to realise that there are people who are adults with legitimate, valid opinions, not just him.

Sadly, Adolin is a supporting character, whose only purpose of existing within the narrative is to set up plot points, such as setting up Shallan to find Urithiru, and to act as a foil to Dalinar and Kaladin.   We can still make up plenty of unsatisfying theories about his failed love life- like Shshshsh dying when Adolin was ~13, and Dalinar always away helping Gavilar and Sadeas beat up the other Highprinces and take revenge on the Parshendi, so he had no female (or adult in general) parental figure or role model in adolescence to demonstrate how (non-superficial) relationships between men and women work.   Renarin was even younger when Shshshsh died and as far as we know, he has never even been on a single date while people at his age are upgrading their contracts from causal to formal.   There would be plenty of lighteyed girls fifth dahn or lower who would jump at the chance to marry him and have a comfortable life as a wealthy citylord's wife.   Growing up in a big empty house with servants and no friends possibly triggered a disconnect between him and with other people who weren't family.  Everyone would be lower ranking than him, since Adolin is heir to a Princedom, pretty much the highest rank you can be before Alethkar became a unified kingdom.  The typical to response to an invitation as a kid would have gone along the lines of, "sorry guys I can't hang out with you, I've got sword practice this afternoon, tomorrow, the day after...and pretty much forever."   And likely it was worse for Renarin, who spent his developing years only talking to Adolin and ardents, aka people his dad owns.  

Was Danlan the only girl on-screen who approached him first?  I got the impression that a lot of his former dates dropped him because he forgot about them and went after someone else.  Still, even if Adolin is awkward with anything past first base, he seems to have no problem with "socially acceptable contact", or holding and kissing girls' freehands or  footsie under the table.   I would have thought that if you can do step 1, step 2 isn't really an issue.  Then again, after re-reading his bragging interactions from Kaladin's point of view, and then comparing it to the Adolin viewpoint chapters, I have the feeling that Adolin is an unreliable narrator who subconsciously glosses over the reasons for his failed relationships to girls and guy friends because he doesn't want to see himself as a failure at something.  The "It's not me, it's them" mentality.  From the double date with Danlan, Inkima and Jakamav in WoK:

 

"Adolin liked to be familiar with a large number of people, but not terribly close with any of them."

WoK, chapter 58.

 

Maybe he's the problem.

I think it's funny that people are critical of how successful and fast Shallan is at learning surgebinding and con artist skills in something like 4 months.  But Kaladin has been naturally good at everything since his childhood.  He may not have a natural affinity to medicine but he learns things very quickly, and in other skills he is supernaturally intuitive.   His ability to learn, however, tends to be overshadowed by his other character traits of depression and plot-relevant stupidity.  

 

I think Kaladin is the character canonically most likely to have a mullet.

 

This is the best Adolin I've seen! I mean, I imagined him a bit more manly-looking (like sharp cheek bones and prominent chin and stuff) but with styled hair (messy styled), but at least his eyes, skin and hair colour and are on point. Alethi were supposed to look a bit Thai. These guys with golden-blond hair are my mental picture  

Spoiler

Edited February 10, 2017 by strumienpola

On 15.02.2016 at 4:17 AM, maxal said:

But maybe Renarin does.............

Oh god, please, no!  I imagine Renarin with a wavy shoulder-lengh hair but NOT a mullet  

2 hours ago, strumienpola said:

This is the best Adolin I've seen! I mean, I imagined him a bit more manly-looking (like sharp cheek bones and prominent chin and stuff) but with styled hair (messy styled), but at least his eyes, skin and hair colour and are on point. Alethi were supposed to look a bit Thai. These guys with golden-blond hair are my mental picture  

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I actually like your pics which is surprising as I usually have a hard time with dark haired real-life humans for Adolin. I think the facial works though, especially within the right picture. Adolin isn't supposed to look like a mature man with chiseled features: he looks young and youthful. Hence I do think to picture to the right does capture it quite nicely. Now we just need to completely change the eye and hair color, skin tone is probably about right for Adolin. That's basically how I picture him.

4 minutes ago, strumienpola said:

Oh god, please, no!  I imagine Renarin with a wavy shoulder-lengh hair but NOT a mullet  

I imagine Renarin with short-cropped hair, much like his father. A forgettable usual hair cut, nothing out of the ordinary nor flashy: just plain and simple.

1 minute ago, maxal said:

I imagine Renarin with short-cropped hair, much like his father. A forgettable usual hair cut, nothing out of the ordinary nor flashy: just plain and simple.

I imagined him with longer hair and soft looks, because everyone seems to believe he's a sissy for many reasons, not just his blood sickness. But I do have to admit, that your vision fits more, as I guess he would try to look more manly because of that very reason. I'm not gonna change my mental picture tho, because I ten do fall for characters like him and I adjust his looks to my personal preference too xD